Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

In the early Edo era the “Eight Views” (hakkei) topos provided a fresh approach to engaging with the Tale of Genji. This paper explores, with particular attention to the use of paratexts, how an initially elite calligraphic and decorative exercise was later adapted for use in popular print series.

Paper long abstract:

The establishment of the standard set of waka poetry topics known as “Eight Views of Ōmi” (Ōmi hakkei) around the start of the Edo period, although with roots going back to the 13th century, laid the foundation for a later tradition of richly varied and imaginative remakings, variations, and parodies in the world of popular woodblock prints, peaking in the first half of the 19th century but continuing into the 20th. The program of eight familiar topics, fixed but always open to some reinterpration--very often through the substitution of a different location or other modifier in place of “Ōmi”--evidently proved appealing to both publishers and consumers of popular prints, producing a corpus that gives scholars today insight into the interaction between primary visual subjects and the various paratextual elements that accompany many such prints.

One adaptation of the “Eight Views” substitutes Genji monogatari for Ōmi, matching the eight standard topics with appropriate excerpts of chapters from the great classic tale. Initially this Genji hakkei seems to have been a text-only work, with the earliest known example in the hand of Emperor Higashiyama (1675-1710). It soon became an established subject for calligraphy and painting, with illustrated versions (as emaki picture scrolls) dating back to the early 18th century. This intersection of the convenient hakkei program and the rich story world of Genji monogatari eventually caught the attention of woodblock printmakers catering to the popular market. In this paper I examine some of the resulting sets of prints, especially those by Chōbunsai Eishi (1756-1829) and Kikukawa Eizan (1787-1867): through analysis of the use of various paratextual elements in the establishment of the topics, I argue that the appropriation of Genji monogatari they afford compares favorably with that performed in the elite emaki and manuscript versions.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

The sudden appearance of Tamakazura rekindles the adventurous womaniser in now-middle-aged Hikaru Genji. Despite becoming a toy in Genji's mischievous plot, she manages to escape Lady Murasaki's fate.However, can Tamakazura's resilience give voice to a novelistic character with distinctive features?

Paper long abstract:

Even a thousand years after its birth, The Tale of Genji is widely read by people of all ages and scholars worldwide. Murasaki Shikibu’s literary genius shows itself within the multi-layered story of the Shining Prince by creating autonomous characters distinct from the authorial voice. Although it is not commonly studied in English-speaking Academia, the ten-chapter-long Tamakazura Sequence stands out amongst others for its novelistically constructed features. Moreover, the character’s internal monologues, self-composed poems and how others perceive her provide insight into Tamakazura’s growth and evolution throughout the story. Accordingly, this paper takes Tamakazura’s character as an example to elaborate on the discourse of monogatari that is nurtured by ancient Japanese poetry and developed by Murasaki Shikibu in the Heian period.

The sudden appearance of Tamakazura rekindles the adventurous womaniser in now-middle-aged Genji. He takes his long lost lover Yūgao's daughter as one of his, yet Genji's affection towards this beautiful young woman changes direction quickly. Even though Tamakazura becomes a toy in the Shining Prince's mischievous plot, she manages to escape Lady Murasaki's fate by marrying another man. Tamakazura's character evolves in various ways and develops a unique voice that differs from other characters by adding her story a bildungsroman quality. However, can Tamakazura's resilience be enough to make her into a novelistic character?

Keywords: discourse, novel, Genji monogatari, poetry, character analysis

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I survey the field of monogatari research (beyond Genji) that first bloomed in the late Edo period. Focusing on the reception of studies by Japanologist Kurokawa Harumura, I explore the mix of continuity and development that marked work on the genre during the crucial Edo-Meiji shift.

Paper long abstract:

A notable development of late Edo-period literary studies is the proliferation of catalogues (mokuroku) dedicated to particular genres of text, each surveyed work within which bore a brief content summary. For the genre of monogatari (tale literature), after Yamaoka Matsuake’s (1726-1780) pioneering Furumonogatari mokuroku (Catalogue of Old monogatari texts), at least seven further such catalogues were produced by Japanologists throughout the Edo period. The chief subject of these catalogues were works known as tsukuri-monogatari, or “fictional tales.” Treatment at this scale announced a break with the prevailing literary tradition, throughout most of which such tsukuri-monogatari had been, if anything, a deprecated genre (excepting, of course, the Tale of Genji). This series of catalogues marked the emergence of tsukuri-monogatari as a worthy subject of research recognition. Nor were these catalogues of a merely memorial function: through their production and circulation, contemporary Japanologists effected a sustained sharing of information that led, not only to the sheer quantitative expansion of the tsukuri-monogatari corpus then available to research, but also to the qualitative deepening and development of tsukuri-monogatari studies as a research field. The activities of such Edo-period scholars reached their peak with the Furumonogatari ruijishō (A Phonetic Glossary of Old monogatari Texts) of Kurokawa Harumura (1799-1867), which summarized and integrated the achievements of his predecessors. This Furumonogatari ruijishō, moreover, was valued and relied upon not only by Harumura’s contemporaries, but also by post-Meiji professional scholars of Japanese literature in the modern mold. Put differently, Furumonogatari ruijishō was not only the summary achievement of Edo-period research on monogatari literature, but served also as the starting-point for subsequent monogatari research in the Meiji period. Harumura’s work stands thus as an important point of juncture, one linking modern to premodern across the Meiji hinge.

In this paper, focusing in particular on the scholastic fate of Furumonogatari ruijishō from Edo into Meiji, I explore the mix of continuity and development that characterized monogatari research in this crucial period. As this reception history mirrors, moreover, the contemporary reception of tsukuri-monogatari texts more generally, through this investigation I also seek to consider the shifting place of that genre itself.